Let Me Die In The Morning-time

Let me die in the morning-time
before the day has complicated things
and let it be now, in early spring
while the soil is warming
and the sun has hinted
at the colour in its cheeks

then plant me shallow
among sudden snowdrops
and crocuses

with the grass still wet
from the morning's crisp rain
with dark earth clinging to the spade

let roots creep between my ribs
and green shoots sprout

from my finger tips

there is a suggestion of warm bees
and sparrows can sing eulogies
perhaps blackbirds will chortle calls
among the first green flush of leaves

and then next day
when you have washed your hands and face
make a flask of tea
wrap sugared doughnuts in a bag
or lardy cake
and climb the high top of Melbury Hill

look back across the valley
to the places we spilled our childhood
Badger's Wood and Seymour's Bottom
the tadpole pond down Frenchmill Lane
with pointing fingers
trace maps across the landscape
to find Cann Mill amongst the thickening trees
spot the Higher Blandford Road
and the Lower
and search out the roof of the house where we once lived

mine has been a cluttered life
confused and spattered across times and place
and you may imagine patterns that never were

but this –
this was the chase beneath the skin
the quickening
the valley floor
the early store of buttery days
that has fed me always
that has kept me fat while I was thin

Dead Pigeon

Walking home the other day I came upon a dead pigeon in the street.  The way it lay and the colour of the carcass led me to imagine that rather than being crushed into the pavement it was actually emerging out of it...

I snapped a photo of it and my talented friend Adry Ruiz (@xxxadryxxx) translated it into a pencil drawing to accompany this poem

From the ash of the asphalt I am born

fledged from flagstone streets

I will dance for you through broken air

for you will I thrill in flight

I am the chill of the wild in the town

I am a child in the still of the sky

settle my soul in the spirit world

fashion me feathers and fly

as a shaman's cape will I shelter you

although I am crushed and torn

for though my entrails grace the ground

no harm to me now can come

I'll dance once more through the greasy air

dance once more by the bridge

dance once more on the frosty street

where you creatures of the city live

come, dance with me as the day begins

dance with me as it ends

feed me scraps from the morsels bag

feed me love from your lips

I have the courage of an iron bear

the grace of a violin

I have the strut of an ancient mare

that drinks by the river's brim

for though I am crushed and split apart

though I am shattered and crazed

I live with you in the city's heart

wherever a city is raised

Dead Flowers

rustles in the undergrowth

we fling stones

stand silent for a moment

to count the effect -

stillness still

weigh the probable outcome

in our minds until

with nervous glances between us

we push our hands

among dead flowers

separate stem from stem

touch fingers in our searching

and draw from the wrecked bed

a grey frog

eyes sunken from the stoning

a shattering of limbs

soiled with earth

our eyes meet in an understanding

of the creatures death

and the strange power of our hands

Thus have I killed you

And thus
have I killed you
a hundred times:
stalked your corpse
among the living;
ripped the soul
from your dead flesh
in some imagined resurrection.


Thus have I killed you
a thousand times and more
when every face I see
in some small way
reflects a part of you:
the line of jaw;
the velvet camber
of a sallow cheek.



Thus have I killed you,
oh, ten thousand times
and mourned your death afresh
for dead you are
it seems
four decades gone
or so they say
though I did never see you dead:
never measured your length
upon a slab;
just some old box we tucked away
into the ground -
a time capsule of a life.



And every woman
still
spotted from this bus
though two hundred miles away
in years and space
for a fleeting moment
breaks nature's rule
and feeds my futile heart
with desperate hope
that hers might be your face.

Finite - a prose poem

A second piece written on holiday, originally called No Work On Monday!

Maybe it's my age that brings death to my thoughts so often.

I wrote this not out of a feeling of depression but rather a sense of the release death offers and how briefly we share the earth in comparison to natural phenomena - which are of course, themselves, finite.

Everyday, in some way, I contemplate my death.

Today – Friday – stood above these staggering falls, I cast, in my mind's eye, my carcass down from this viewing bridge to cascade and shatter on the rocks below. And although I fear my end would be neither instant or painless, the thundering water, blistering the air and cracking fractures in the rock, would so overwhelm me that in my shattered state I would have no strength to fight my way back to grace.

The torrent like a thousand fists, like the hurling of a thousand stones, would boulder me to death, pressing my splintered rib cage down against these ragged sharps.

And later, when the hue and cry had scoured the fruitless paths, they'd find these tattered bollocks buttered into crevices beneath the fall. They'd pull me out, of course, and as some poor sod wrung water from his uniform, and accepted praise from colleagues for a difficult job well done, they'd strap what's left of me to a stretcher and man-handle me back to the patient car-parked ambulance.

There'd be no need for sirens blaring, no alarum bells. Hurrying would make no difference now.

And though I do not doubt that some would curse the spot and shout their angry questions in my dead face, I would rest more or less peacefully knowing this to be my last place.